1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a system, a program, and a method each for assisting printing when performing booklet printing by a printing device, and particularly to a printing assist system, a printing assist program, and a printing assist method each capable of selecting a print mode suitable for a user's requirement even if no selection history in the case with the same print specification exists.
2. Related Art
When performing booklet printing or making a job ticket therefor, a user needs to set finishing information such as a stitching position in detail besides format information such as a paper size, a printing direction, a page layout, and whether or not the double sided printing is performed. However, since in the case with the booklet printing, much jargon was used and there were too many items to be input, it was not necessarily easy for a user with little knowledge about the booklet printing to carry out the setting.
IN the past, techniques disclosed in, for example, JP-A-2003-271330, JP-A-2004-102613, JP-A-2000-172469, and JP-A-2005-44300, respectively, have been known to the public as techniques for assisting the booklet printing. Either of these techniques is for selecting a printing device or a printing setting suitable for the required specification of the printed material.
In the techniques disclosed in the documents listed above, if there are plural alternatives suitable for the required specification of the printed material, the user needs to further select what is suited to his or her own demand among the alternatives. For example, if the specification of the printed material includes only the paper size of A4, many alternatives may be retrieved. Therefore, in this case, the user refines the alternatives based on evaluation items such as cost, print speed, or image quality.
However, in the case in which a number of alternatives are retrieved, since which evaluation items the user gives greater importance to is not known, it is quite difficult to offer the alternatives based on consideration of the evaluation items to which the used gives greater importance. For example, if it is known that the user gives greater importance to cost, the alternative with low cost is preferably offered with priority.
Further, although the alternatives are refined based on the selection history of the user in the technique described in JP-A-2005-44300, if there is no selection history in the case with the same printed material specification, it is quite difficult to offer the alternatives based on consideration of the evaluation items to which the used gives greater importance.